News

+Ifil on England joy

Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs) Football Club is located in North London. The club is also known as Spurs. Tottenham's home ground is White Hart Lane. The club motto is Audere est Facere (To dare is to do).

Philip Ifil was naturally happy over his international exploits last week - the young full-back helped England to three 1-0 wins over Denmark, Sweden and Moldova.

The results mean England have now qualified for the European Championships which will be staged in Northern Ireland in July.

"We had a good week," smiled Philip. "The other right back - McMahon at Middlesbrough - was injured and I had the opportunity to play all three games and we won all three 1-0. I had a good tournament and it was good.

"That's what we worked on in training, keeping clean sheets and, obviously, scoring as many goals as possible. When we went ahead in all the games we had to defend well and got the three wins. We are now in the European Championships and it is all that matters."

It was pointed out to Philip that our own Kieran McKenna - who captains Northern Ireland under-19s - is relishing the prospect of taking on England this summer in his homeland. Not something that seems to overly concern a confident Ifil.

"Everyone fancies their chances against us! I'm not just saying this, to be honest everyone raises their game when they play England and that is the way it is. It is what we are there for though, but we have beaten most of the teams - only lost three or four times in four years - and have a strong team.

"We've got a lot of players in our team that have played in the Championship or Premiership and we'll take on anyone and I think we'll do a good job.

"If we are all together it must be hard for the coach to pick the team really because we've got so many good players - which is always good for competition for places. The time of the tournament is at the start of pre-season so the summer will not be about holidays, but keeping fit.